HIGHLAND WORKMEN.

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excessive use of whisky, which, however, in proper quantities, I should conceive to be necessary to qualify the raw moisture of the climate.

It has been asserted that this undertaking has had no influence in checking Highland emigration, upon the presumption that those who engage themselves as labourers in it are not of that description of Highlanders who feel any disposition to emigrate, a class generally supposed to be composed of little farmers, descended from chieftains ; but the reverse of this seems to be the fact: the labour of digging more coincides with the habits of the Highlander than the sedentary occupation of a manufacture, and it is known, that amongst a body of Highlanders, actually embarked on board of a vessel for America, fifty returned on shore before she sailed, upon receiving assurances of employment in the canal, which, when completed, will rival, if not surpass, the celebrated canals of Trolhætta, in Sweden, and of Languedoc.

To find employment for the dispossessed Highlanders, and to restrain, by occupations at home, the spirit of Highland emigration, are objects of no little importance. The extent of the trade which may be expected to receive benefit, with respect to security and dispatch, from the completion of the Caledonian Canal, (omitting the whole

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of the trade between the eastern and western coasts of Scotland,) appears, from several official accounts prepared in conformity to an order of the House of Commons of the 11th of February, 1806, to amount, in value of imports and exports, to about two millions six hundred thousand pounds; of course the tolls to be paid for vessels passing through the canal will be very great.

When this union of the seas is effected, the amelioration of this part of the Highlands, and of a considerable distance round, must be great and rapid. New sources of industry and enterprise will be opened, new settlements will be established, new towns will rise, the fisheries will be increased, and Agriculture will wave, wherever the soil will admit, her golden harvest. The amount of monies already expended upon this stupendous undertaking, up to May, 1807, is 151,7117. It is probable that the expense of the whole, by the time it is completed, will exceed half a million. Unless many more hands can be procured, that event cannot be looked forward to for many years to come. With such undertakings as these, and such national advantages as must in consequence flow from their accomplishments, we may with regret, but not apprehension, contemplate the gigantic progress of French aggrandizement. The resources of our own country are inexhaustible; but many of them, though pointed to by the hand of

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Nature, remain unnoticed or unknown. A wise policy will at last teach us to turn our eyes, as it were, inwards; to look at home, where we shall find enough remains to be done; and not to waste our strength and our energies upon distant countries, which court our alliance only in the hour of peril, or which, after having invited our assistance, coldly turn from us, and basely submit to the yoke of the foe by a feeble or faithless co-operation.

Thank Heaven that Britain, though great in commerce, is not solely commercial; and that there are thousands and tens of thousands who have never seen a ship, and who have no adequate conception of its construction or power. Our merchants, glittering as they are with well-acquired gold, are but as fringe upon the robe of russet brown." Britain can boast of that best strength of all countries, a bold, manly, active, and numerous peasantry, and a spirit of agricultural enterprise, to which Nature yields. without reluctance, and the soil unfolds its inmost treasures. That wise policy seems to dawn upon the Highlands of Scotland, and the time may not be far off when the hardy mountaineer, with patriotic attachment, unquenchable as the Grecian light, may find full and ample occupation in the dear and cherished spot of his nativity.

Inverness is celebrated in ancient story on account of its poetical schools (Schoil Bhairdeachd), in which the

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POETICAL SCHOOLS.

Bards were trained, and used to perform certain exercises and examinations, when those who did not acquit themselves to the satisfaction of the proper judges were rejected, a circumstance which sometimes occurred after many years intense application. Unpremeditated subjects were frequently proposed at these examinations, and the Poet who was most successful obtained, as a reward, one cupfull of wine from the King's own hand, and another cupfull of gold: so attentive were the Scots in those early ages to the cultivation of letters.

This Highland capital must also have been long in a state of comparative refinement. The ancient Kings and their courts often visited the Highlands, and Inverness was frequently honoured with being the seat of the royal residence. The Kings of Scotland used to hold the Circuit Court in person, and the last of its Sovereigns who thus presided at this town was the unfortunate Queen Mary: the house in which she lodged on these occasions is still standing, though I saw nothing about it worthy of particular description. The Lords of Justiciary now hold the Circuit Court in the spring and autumn.

It is a matter of curious observation that the river Ness, like the lake from which it issues, never freezes, owing, as it is supposed, to its being strongly impregnated with sulphur; and that in the winter, if horses are led into it, with

VITRIFIED FORTS.

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icicles hanging round their fetlocks, produced by other waters, they will speedily dissolve. It has also been asserted that iron will not corrode in this river, nor in Loch Ness. The inhabitants along the lake have frequently seen, in severe frosts, a steam hovering over it, which is considered as a sulphureous exhalation; but this is equivocal, for it might as well be an ordinary as a sulphureous vapour, and, if the former, it is rendered visible by the keen purity of the air.

Inverness is also indebted for much of its interesting character to another extraordinary cause, viz. the ruins of a vitrified fort, which, as well as others of a similar nature, have hitherto baffled the learning and investigaion of the antiquary. This fort is in the form of a parallelogram, about eighty yards long, and thirty broad. Upon removing the turf and earth with which the ruins are covered, the stones appear to be firmly blended together by vitrified matter, resembling the scoriæ of an iron foundry, or the volcanic substances to be seen near the Giant's Causeway in Ireland: in many parts of the wall the stones are completely fused; in others the fusion has been partial, and they are sunk into the vitrified matter. There are several other vitrified forts in Scotland, generally situated upon the summits of hills. Some philosophers have supposed the